AI Prompts for Sales Business Cases and ROI

A business case the prospect's finance team will accept is built from their numbers and their assumptions, with sensitivity shown rather than hidden. Vendor ROI calculators that assume 40% productivity gains are discarded on sight. The credible version identifies a small number of value drivers the champion agrees with, quantifies each conservatively, shows what happens if the assumptions are half right, and compares against the real alternative — usually doing nothing.

These prompts identify the drivers, build the model transparently, and write the one-pager for the economic buyer. Every number should be traceable to something the prospect said or a stated assumption; the model must not fill gaps with industry averages without saying so.

Before you use these

Have these ready to replace the highlighted [variables]:

• Impact evidence from discovery: costs, time, volumes, risks in their numbers
• The prospect's cost of the status quo and of alternatives
• Your pricing and implementation costs
• The metric their finance team uses (payback, ROI, NPV) and the hurdle if known

The prompts

• 1. Identify the value drivers they will accept
• 2. Build the ROI and TCO model transparently
• 3. Write the CFO-ready one-pager

1. Identify the value drivers they will accept

Act as a value engineer identifying value drivers for a business case at [prospect].

Impact evidence from discovery: [what they said about time, cost, volume, risk, revenue — with numbers where given]
What we deliver: [outcomes and mechanisms]
Champion's view: [what they think the case rests on]
Finance context: [how they evaluate investments, hurdle rate or payback expectation if known]

1. List candidate value drivers: hard savings (cost removed), productivity (time freed — and whether it converts to cost or capacity), revenue effect, risk reduction, cost avoidance. For each: the evidence from discovery it rests on, the mechanism by which we cause it, and the input numbers required.
2. Rate each driver on traceability (does it come from their words?), measurability (can they verify it after purchase?), and credibility to finance (hard savings > productivity > revenue > risk).
3. Select 3–4 drivers for the case; explain why the others are excluded (weak evidence, unmeasurable, will be discounted).
4. For each selected driver: a conservative and a base estimate with the assumption behind each, and the question to ask the champion to firm up the input.
5. The driver most likely to be challenged and the defense.
6. What to leave out of the case entirely because including it would damage credibility.

Do not use industry-average assumptions without labeling them; prefer a smaller number the prospect gave over a larger one we assume.

2. Build the ROI and TCO model transparently

You are building an ROI and total-cost-of-ownership model for [prospect]'s evaluation of [our product].

Value drivers: [selected, with conservative and base estimates and assumptions]
Our costs: [license/subscription by year, implementation, training, internal effort hours × their rate, ongoing admin]
Status quo cost: [what they spend today on the problem, including the costs discovery surfaced]
Alternatives: [build, other vendor, do nothing — with costs if known]
Horizon and metric: [years; payback / ROI / NPV at their discount rate]

1. Inputs table: every input with its value, unit, source (prospect-stated / our data / assumption) and owner.
2. Benefits by driver by year, with the ramp (benefits do not start at 100% in month one) and the formula.
3. Costs by year: ours and their internal costs; TCO over the horizon.
4. Comparison: our solution vs status quo vs alternatives on TCO and net benefit.
5. Metrics: payback period, ROI, NPV — formulas shown.
6. Sensitivity: results at 50%, 75%, 100% of base benefits; and the single input that most affects the result.
7. Assumptions register and the three assumptions finance will challenge first.

Present as tables with formulas visible. Do not omit their internal costs; a model that ignores them is discarded.

3. Write the CFO-ready one-pager

Act as a finance-literate sales lead writing a one-page business case for [prospect]'s CFO/economic buyer for [our product].

Model results: [payback, ROI/NPV, benefits by driver, TCO, sensitivity]
Drivers and their evidence: [summary]
Risks: [implementation, adoption, dependency] with mitigations
Decision requested: [what, when, by whom]

Write the one-pager:
1. The cost of the status quo: what the problem costs per year in their numbers, and the source.
2. The investment: total over the horizon, structure, and their internal effort — no hidden costs.
3. The return: conservative case first, base case second, with payback and the metric they use. One line on what the conservative case assumes.
4. Sensitivity: the one input that matters and the result if it is half of base.
5. Risks and mitigations: three lines.
6. Why now: the cost of a year's delay, from the model.
7. The decision requested, with the date and the next step.

Under 350 words, numbers in a small table. No adjectives. Then list the three questions the CFO is most likely to ask and the answers.

A conservative-case ROI in numbers

Illustrative model output for a three-year horizon, with the prospect's own inputs.

Related prompts

• Sales Proposal Development
• Sales Negotiation and Discount Pushback
• Discovery Call Analysis
• Mutual Action Plans
• Expansion and Upsell
• Financial model sanity check — Finance

Logical next step

After this, most sales teams move on to Sales Proposal Development.

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